Wanted is the first out the gate of the "Millarworld" books, a variety of books by Mark Millar from a variety of publishers. It is also the one that most interested me, partly because of the notion of a sort of hyper-violent take on super-villains and mostly because of J.G. Jones on full art, which is all-too-rare these days. What Wanted #1 gives the reader is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from these creators. The artwork is beautiful, near photo-realistic and the story features a heaping helping of sex, violence and depravity alongside a truly twisted imagination. Millar doesn't really break out of the mold he's established for himself with books like The Ultimates and The Authority, but he and Jones work well within it to create a fun and fast thrill ride sure to tickle the fancy of anyone who has enjoyed Millar's work previously.
There are plenty of recognizable stylistic tics at work in the pages of Wanted. Casual references to alternate dimensions, equally casual violence and sex and a look at the selfish glamor of celebrity melded with super-powers are a big part of what defines the book. There's also what has become de rigeur for the writers on the other side of the Atlantic when they write super-heroes, which is a tendency to imagine these powers out to insane degrees. The super hitman isn't just good, he has to be taken out with a rifle from two cities away while he's distracted fighting goons. His son's abilities aren't just impressive gun skills, but the ability to instinctively blow the wings off flies. It's wonderfully over-the-top, and if it doesn't seem quite as fresh given that we've seen it before, there's still no denying that it's a ton of fun.
Fun is the operative word here, which is odd because there's a certain level of disturbing depravity at work. A man who pays gay men to have sex so that he can engage his heterosexual sex drive, a woman who casually murders everyone in a diner just to make a point and a good deal of blood and gunfire can be found in the pages of this book. Even the more normal elements of Wesley Gibson's life are pretty sordid, from his nymphomaniac cheating girlfriend to his politically-incorrect over-bearing boss to his whiny thoughts about the meaninglessness of his life. Despite all this, which could be depressing or just numbing in the wrong hands, Millar makes it fun, such that seeing Gibson born into a life of hyperactive super-crime actually seems like a positive rather than just rolling him into a horrorshow. These are not nice people, but I'll be damned if they're not entertaining.
Millar is having fun, but it's clear that Jones and Mounts are too. Jones brings an impressive level of detail to the mundane aspects of Wesley's life, which is important in setting up the shocker of his new life, but he also handles those shocks quite well. The debauchery of the Killer's mode of relaxation is portrayed in all of its hedonistic glory, and the blood and guts that erupt when violence begins is like something out of a '70s chop-socky flick. Jones also does a fantastic job conveying the superhuman movements of his character, most notably in the sequence where the Killer chases down his would-be assassins but also in the casual cruelty that the Fox brings to her work.
Wanted is a twisted look at the wish-fulfilment story, where a normal guy finds out that he's part of something much bigger and weirder. Except that instead of finding out he's a boy wizard or heir to the throne, Wesley Gibson finds out he belongs to a club of mass murderers and psychopaths with world-shattering powers. This is dark stuff, but it's also wickedly funny and beautiful to look at, and it's certainly something no fan of mature super-heroes should miss.
